Virginia Henley by Enticed

left the shop Kitty was wearing a yellow silk organza, which fell in ruffles down the back over a crinoline. Her hair was gathered up at one side with a bunch of silk primroses and she carried a parasol to match her dress. She insisted on wearing two pairs of frilled gloves at the same time. “See how pretty the double rows of frills are?” she asked Patrick.
    “Like your eyelashes,” he murmured.
    She loved the compliments he had suddenly begun to pay her, but his voice was so intimate that it made her blush. She couldn’t escape the feeling that he knew something she didn’t. She was anticipating what would come next and could sense his anticipation, but vaguely she felt they were not anticipating the same things. Suddenly her attention was drawn to a man beating his horse in the street. Without a moment’s hesitation she wrested the whip from him and laid it about his back with a sweeping stroke.
    “Now you know what it feels like!” she said passionately, her eyes blazing.
    Patrick was momentarily stunned at her actions, but gallantly backed her up in condemning the carter’s treatment of the poor beast. Out of his past came a picture of his pretty Irish mother taking a whip to some fellow for his insolence.
    “What a difference your new clothes make. Suddenly you have the confidence of a duchess. Lady Jane Tut to the verylife!” he teased. He helped her into the carriage and gave instructions to his driver. He sat opposite her so that he could view her to advantage. “You saw yourself in a mirror at Madame Martine’s so you must realize how very beautiful you are.”
    “Yes, I do look beautiful, don’t I?” she asked ingenuously.
    “As a matter of fact, you are a very showy female. In Lancashire we have an expression, ‘You pay well for dressing.’ Now wherever I take you, all the men will be staring at you, and I’ll hate every moment of it.” The glint in his eyes belied his words.
    “You’re teasing me!” said Kitty with a laugh.
    “On the contrary, my dear, it is you who are teasing me,” he said softly.
    His eyes lingered on her lips until she said breathlessly, “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
    “Like what, Kitty?”
    “Well … like I look at food when I’m very hungry— sort of longingly.”
    He took her hand and put the tips of her fingers to his lips. “I would love to eat you,” he said suggestively. “Just one taste would satisfy me.”
    She looked at him very seriously and said, “Patrick, you know that’s a lie; nothing would satisfy you but the whole.”
    He was startled for a moment and wondered if she realized she had just made a very racy pun. It was hard to tell with Kitty. One moment she was all little girl; the next she could do or say something so sexually provocative, he became hard instantly.
    The carriage went downriver past the Tower of London. “Oh, let’s go to the Tower, please, Patrick.”
    “How can I refuse you anything when you ask so prettily? However, first I think we are in need of sustenance.”
    The carriage stopped at Wapping Wall outside the Prospect of Whitby. “Oh, isn’t this a public house?” she asked doubtfully as he helped her down.
    “Yes, it’s a pub, the best on the Thames. It has been here since 1509.”
    “Well, do you think it quite proper for me to go into a place like this?”
    “Well, some ladies would refuse, but this morning you were the girl who wanted to go everywhere and experience everything, weren’t you?”
    She tucked her arm in his and smiled up invitingly. “What are we waiting for?”
    He led her upstairs on the riverside. It was high tide and the Prospect stood on tall timbers, out in the river’s waters. Kitty received many admiring glances and she noticed that she was the only woman in the room. Patrick ordered for them both. They had pâté, whitebait and trout broiled in heavy butter. “In the last century, thieves and smugglers frequented this place. The hangman too—the public